Republic debate: Albo should scrap republic support, experts say
Anthony Albanese’s plan to appoint a Minister for the Republic and work towards independence if he is elected has been quashed by experts, who claim there’s not enough support for the move.
NSW
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Plans for an Albanese Government to include a “Minister for the Republic” as well as a promise to work “towards establishing an Australian republic” should be dumped after a new poll showed fading levels of support for a republic among young people, says a constitutional expert.
Constitutional monarchist and former broadcasting authority chairman Professor David Flint also warns that any future Minister for the Republic risks “undermining” the Australian Constitution.
Currently ALP Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has Kingsford Smith MP Matt Thistlewaite in his team as the “Shadow Minister for the Republic”.
And the ALP National Platform, the blueprint for government that an “Albanese Labor Government will implement”, says: “Labor supports and will work toward establishing an Australian republic with an Australian head of state.”
Mr Albanese said in February “there will be no movement on a republic in his first term”.
But he has not answered if he will axe the current Minister for the Republic.
Mr Flint urged him to get rid of the role, pointing to the polling results of the latest Ipsos poll, which showed 45 per cent support for retaining existing arrangements, and even stronger support among those aged in their 20s.
“The poll confirms earlier polls…showing general support for a republic at 34 per cent but with the lowest support among the 18 to 24 year olds at 24 per cent,” Mr Flint said.
“If they can’t persuade the young, they have already lost.
“The poll ought to persuade Anthony Albanese not to proceed with the plan to undermine the Constitution through a Minister for the Republic who will incongruously become - according to the Constitution, one of ‘the Queen’s Ministers of State for the Commonwealth’.”
He said such a Minister would use the “vast resources of the Commonwealth to undermine and campaign against a significant part of the Constitution, the Australian Crown - The Queen, the Governor-General, and the State Governors”.
Such an office was “vastly different from just proposing to hold a second referendum which I suspect is doomed”, Mr Flint said.
Mr Albanese said in February there would be no movement on a republic in his first term.
Woke generation’s surprising thoughts on the Royals
Young Aussies in their 20s are more likely to support Australia retaining the monarchy than adults in their 30s and 40s, a surprising new national poll has found.
It also reveals an overall rise in support for sticking with the current arrangements, with 45 per cent of adults happy to “share our monarch with the UK”, up from 41 per cent last November and 37 per cent in 2020.
Thirty one per cent said they didn’t want to keep with the monarchy and almost a quarter were undecided.
It comes as the spotlight has grown on the health of Queen Elizabeth, 96, who attended her Platinum Jubilee Horse Extravaganza amid speculation about the attendance of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
The most recent Ipsos poll of 1000 adults taken on April 27 found a strikingly high level of support among the Generation Z demographic - aged 18 to 29 - at 46 per cent.
The poll question says Australia is ruled under a form of constitutional monarchy, and that the current monarch is Queen Elizabeth 11, who is also a monarch of the UK. “With this in mind, do you want Australia to continue to share a monarch with the United Kingdom?”
Those in the 30 to 49 year age bracket were 36 per cent in favour of continuing these arrangements - a full 10 points less than the younger generation.
And - according to the Australian Monarchist League, attendance at their recent gatherings “have been mainly by the under 25s and the over 60s with fewer people in between”.
“I am finding that the current university age generation are highly intelligent and do their own research and make up their own minds,” national chairman Philip Benwell said.
“They are not frightened to stand up for the things they believe in. Instead of just accepting what they are told, they question. Also, many young monarchists are progressive and support the statements of Prince Charles in regard to climate action.”
Mr Benwell said his organisation had a 50,000 strong database and the polling reflected his own members’ support for the current system of constitutional monarchy.
“ However, should there be another referendum on a republic, I believe that it will be even more overwhelmingly defeated than the 1999 referendum even if Charles is King at the time.”
Overall, the poll found those aged more than 50 years were the biggest supporters of the Queen as our head of state, at 52 per cent.
The poll, commissioned by Irish citizen Anthony McDonnell, also quizzed people about whether we should have our own homegrown royalty, in the event Australia voted for a republic in a future referendum.
In that scenario, 23 per cent of us want our own Australian monarchy, 47 per cent want a republic and 30 per cent were undecided.
But National Director of the Australian Republic Movement national director Sandy Biar expressed scepticism over the poll, saying it was a “bizarre” proposition to ask about replacing British Royals with our own royals, and that Ipsos poll was out of step with other polls.
He said “only a minority of Australians want Australia to retain the monarchy, even under Queen Elizabeth II”.
“Support for an Australian republic has been steadily increasing over the past decade as the reign of Queen Elizabeth II draws to an end,” he said.
“Australians do not want Charles as King. If we want to stop Charles becoming King and have an Australian, elected by Australians as our Head of State we need to act now.”
The data came from Ipsos’ Digital Omnibus online survey.
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Originally published as Republic debate: Albo should scrap republic support, experts say
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